Wells Fargo discovered several power-saving innovations that, with the help of good timing, are saving money and decreasing energy usage in two new data centers.

Powering Ahead

Now the firm is aiming to construct a LEED-certified data
center about 12 miles from Tempe. (LEED, leadership in
energy and environmental design, was devised by the nonprofit
U.S. Green Building Council as a set of benchmarks to
measure a structure's environmental friendliness. The council
rates buildings based on sustainability, water efficiency and
other factors.)

But it won't be easy, Culver concedes. "That's very difficult
to achieve with data centers because they do consume so much
energy," he says.

Culver plans to rely on dynamic power management features
from Hewlett-Packard. The software, which comes with
HP's ProLiant servers, lets administrators shut off power in
semiconductor chips until it's needed. Culver says Wells Fargo
will begin piloting the tool in the coming months.

The company will also have to contend with higher material
prices than it encountered while building its data centers in
Minneapolis and Tempe. Culver wouldn't reveal the exact price
tag for the facilities, but he said Minneapolis cost less than
$100 million, while Tempe came in "well under" that.

Then, copper—an essential component of data center wire
and cable—was selling for about $.70 per pound. Now, Culver
is looking at prices around $3.50 per pound. On top of that, the
Environmental Protection Agency has sunsetted older power
generators as it has established new emissions standards.

Manufacturers are ramping up production, but purchase costs
have increased.

To build the Minneapolis or Tempe facilities today, Culver
says, costs would exceed $100 million. He's aiming to keep
expenses for the new Tempe data center less than or around
$100 million.

To accommodate heavy transaction volumes, financial
institutions are constantly updating and renovating their data
centers. In planning, power
consumption and costs have
become a higher priority for
these firms. But for Culver—as
well as many of Wells Fargo's
competitors—other concerns
come first.

Protecting sensitive customer
data is the top priority,
Culver says. Next comes availability.

"You tackle the purpose
at hand, and design something
that has security and can be
available," he says. "Then you
talk about making it most efficient:
How can I save energy
on mechanical and electrical
systems?"

Wells Fargo also plans to
expand its virtualization projects.
But that will require
overcoming cultural obstacles,
according to Culver. More than two years ago, the company
invested in VMware's ESX Server, a hypervisor-based virtualization
software tool that provides automatic failover and live
backups. As of second quarter 2007, Wells Fargo had virtualized
almost 500 servers.

Still, the virtualization initiatives were slow to take hold.
The biggest problems, Culver says: Some lines of business
didn't want to share equipment with others. Overcoming that
is no easy task, because Wells Fargo has hundreds of business
lines organized into 10 or more groups.

Culver says the company also plans to explore more green
techniques, though he's concerned about payback. An experiment
with a solar array on the roof of the Tempe facility is
under way, for instance; Culver is not entirely sure about the
potential return, he says, but this is a low-cost investment
worth trying. Other eco-friendly features such as motiondetector
lighting and variable-speed fans also cost little but
can yield significant returns.

Before considering any other new tools or techniques,
according to Culver, Wells Fargo will examine the potential
return on investment. "If someone says the incremental cost
of a project is $5 million and the return is 23 years, we're not
going to do it," he says. "It's still a financially driven motivator
for us."

Wells Fargo At a Glance

Headquarters:
420 Montgomery St., San Francisco, CA 94163

Phone:
(866) 878-5865

Business:
Offers a range of financial services, including
consumer and corporate banking, insurance, investments and
mortgages

Senior Vice President, Technology Information Group:
Bob Culver

Financials in 2006:
$48 billion in revenue; $8.5 billion in
profit

Challenge:
Plan and build two new high-density data centers without
increasing energy expenditures on the company's other
facilities.

Brian joined Baseline in March 2006. In addition to previous stints at Inter@ctive Week and The Net Economy, he's written for The News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla., as well as The Sunday Tribune in Dublin, Ireland. Brian has a B.A. from Bucknell University and a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.